In many electronic applications, electrical resonators are used. For example, in many wireless communications devices, radio frequency (RF) and microwave frequency resonators are used as filters to improve reception and transmission of signals. Filters typically include inductors and capacitors, and more recently resonators.
As will be appreciated, it is desirable to reduce the size of components of electronic devices. Many known filter technologies present a barrier to overall system miniaturization. With the need to reduce component size, a class of resonators based on the piezoelectric effect has emerged. In piezoelectric-based resonators, acoustic resonant modes are generated in the piezoelectric material. These acoustic waves are converted into electrical waves for use in electrical applications.
One type of acoustic resonator is a Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator (FBAR). The FBAR has the advantage of small size and lends itself to Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturing tools and techniques. The FBAR includes an acoustic stack comprising, inter alia, a layer of piezoelectric material disposed between two electrodes. Acoustic waves achieve resonance across the acoustic stack, with the resonant frequency of the waves being determined by the materials in the acoustic stack.
FBARs are similar in principle to bulk acoustic resonators such as quartz, but are scaled down to resonate at GHz frequencies. Because the FBARs have thicknesses on the order of microns and length and width dimensions of hundreds of microns, FBARs beneficially provide a comparatively compact alternative to known resonators.
FBARs may comprise a membrane (also referred to as the acoustic stack) disposed over air. Often, such a structure comprises the membrane suspended over a cavity provided in a substrate over which the membrane is suspended. Other FBARs may be comprises the membrane formed over an acoustic mirror formed in the substrate. Regardless of whether the membrane is formed over air or over an acoustic mirror, the membrane comprises a piezoelectric layer disposed over a first electrode, and a second electrode disposed over the piezoelectric layer.
Among other applications, FBARs are used in communications devices for electrical filters, and in electrical devices for voltage transformer, to name merely a few applications. One type of electrical filter application of FBARs is a passband filter used in duplex communications. As is known by one of ordinary skill in the art, duplex filters are used to provide isolation between a transmit function of a duplexer and a receive function of the duplexer. Thus, two filters are provided, and each is designed to function within certain specifications that include prescribed pass-band transmission, out-of-band attenuation and roll-off, to name a few common specifications.
More and more there is a need for differential signal applications from a single ended input. This has led to the investigation of alternative filter arrangements.
One way of providing a single-ended to differential signal transformation in a filter application involves a device known as a balun. For example, the balun may be connected to an FBAR-based filter. Unfortunately, and among other drawbacks, the use of a balun adds another (external) element to circuit, driving the cost and size of the filter up.
One known resonator structure having a differential output comprises coupled mode resonators. Filters based on coupled mode acoustic resonators are often referred to as coupled resonator filters (CRFs). CRFs have been investigated and implemented to provide improved passband and isolation of the transmit band and receive band of duplexers, for example. Often known CRFs comprises separate FBARs connected to in an effort to provide better performance, such as by cancelling certain higher order modes. However, there are drawbacks to this known attempt. For example, the cancellation is poor at certain frequency ranges where parasitic lateral modes are found. Moreover, the quality (Q) factor in these separate FBAR configurations is degraded compared to known FBARs. The degradation in the Q factor is manifest in degradation in the insertion loss in the passband of the separate FBAR devices.
Another topology for CRFs comprises an upper FBAR and a lower FBAR, often with a layer of acoustic decoupling material between the two FBARs. The two electrodes of one of the FBARs comprise the differential outputs, and one of the inputs to the lower resonator provides the single-ended input. The second electrode provides the ground for the device. However, while the stacked-FBAR CRF shows promise from the perspective of improved performance and reduced area or footprint due to its vertical nature, in order to attain this structure, the orientation of the compression axes (c-axes) of individual piezoelectric materials must be tailored to the application. For example, it may be useful to provide one piezoelectric layer have its crystalline orientation (and thus the c-axis) in one direction, and the second piezoelectric layer to have its crystalline orientation anti-parallel to the c-axis of the first piezoelectric layer. However, using many known methods of fabricating piezoelectric layers, it is difficult to select the orientation of the piezoelectric crystal during fabrication, and especially on the same wafer.
There is a need, therefore, to tailor the orientation of the piezoelectric crystalline orientation that overcomes at least the shortcoming of known methods discussed above.